Model Tomoko Misawa shows off the
alleged world's most valuable diamond in Tokyo.
The diamond is certified as 100-carat, D-color and flawless and will
be on a special display at a Tokyo department store with a price
tag of US$26.6 million

October 2

Image of the Day

It's
amasing how fast good advertising will get a job done. I
got the heatherwood house rented out this weekend securing a last loose
string to be able to move over to the Dos Cabezas house. Mount St. Helens spews more steam and ash
as government scientists remained on alert for a larger
eruption at the Washington state volcano, which woke last week after 18
years of slumber. This image is taken from a VolcanoCam at the Johnston
Ridge Observatory.

October 3

Image of the Day

Conen, a 7-month-old joey koala, receives
some tender, loving care from his keepers at the San Diego Zoo,
in San Diego. Four times a day, the zoo's animal care staff bottle
feed Conen after learning that his mom had stop producing milk and
could no longer provide the proper maternal care. Although he is
being hand reared, the joey koala who weighs about 480 grams or 17
ounces, will continue to remain with mom for the next two to three
years. The San Diego Zoo is home to more than 30 koalas, the largest
colony outside of Australia.

October 4

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A yaguarete, an Argentine mountain cat, named Fabio smells
flowers at the Buenos Aires Zoo. The Zoo placed
flowers in the animal cages and prepared special meals to celebrate
the start of the Spring season.

October 5

Image of the Day

Vibrator shuts down Australian airport BRISBANE,
Australia - Hundreds of airline passengers suffered disruption to
their travel plans when a major regional airport was shut down for an
hour after a humming and vibrating adult sex toy was mistaken for a bomb.
The vibrator was discovered at 9:15 am (2315 GMT Sunday) by a security
officer who checked out a suspicious package inside a rubbish bin
at the terminal cafeteria of Mackay Airport in the northeastern
state of Queensland, a police spokeswoman said. The terminal was evacuated
immediately while passengers who had just arrived from a flight,
check-in staff, cafeteria employees and hire car personnel were
all forced to leave. Cafeteria manager Lynne Bryant said her staff had
been cleaning tables when they noticed a strange humming noise
coming from the rubbish bin. "It was rather disconcerting when the
rubbish bin started humming furiously," she said. "We called
security and next minute everybody was being evacuated while they
checked it out." The police spokeswoman said another two flights
were expected to land at that stage and alternate arrangements
were made for the passengers to collect their luggage away from
the terminal. She
said the emergency situation was revoked just before 10:00 am when
the package was identified as "an adult novelty device". Bryant
said at the time of the upheaval the airport had been quite busy
with two main flights due in and out of the airport - wreaking
havoc with people's schedules. She said in retrospect the humming
sounded exactly like a vibrator - but it was better to be safe
then sorry. "You
can't afford to take chances," she added.

October 6

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France May Allow Jamming of Mobile PhonesPARIS
- Watch a movie or make a mobile phone call. Soon, in France, you
might not be able to do both at once. The government's industry minister
has approved a decision to let cinemas, concert halls and theaters
install cell phone jammers — on
condition that emergency calls can still get through, officials said.Jean
Labbe, president of the National Federation of French Cinemas, said
the measure was a response to "a long-standing request" from
cinemas of all sizes. Cinemas have invested heavily to improve comfort,
and "the authorization
of jammers is the cherry on the cake," he told France Info radio.
Industry Minister Patrick Devedjian gave the go-ahead Friday, backing
a decision by the Telecommunications Regulation Authority to allow
jammers, his ministry said in a statement. Devedjian specified however
that emergency calls and calls made outside theaters and other performance
spaces must not be affected.

October 7

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Presidential winner faces 'twin deficits' battle

WASHINGTON
- Whoever wins the November 2 presidential election will inherit
massive budget and trade deficits that pose huge economic challenges
that will give little relief for President George W. Bush or rival
John Kerry. Washington has gone from a federal budget surplus of
236 billion dollars in 2000 to an estimated deficit of 422 billion
dollars for the fiscal year that ended September 30. Moreover, in the
area of trade and investment, the United States had a deficit of 166.2
billion dollars in the second quarter in the current account deficit,
the broadest measure of trade and investment flows. The twin deficits
are telling the United States that it is consuming more than it is producing,
and requiring foreign investors to fill the gap with capital. But many
economists say this is unsustainable and will further weaken the dollar,
erode US living standards and destabilize the global economy. Both candidates
claim they will halve the deficit, but economists are skeptical. "Both
presidential candidates have made lofty promises with respect to deficit
reduction, tax cuts, and expanded health care coverage. However, it would
take a great deal of luck and skill for either candidate to deliver on
all these promises," said Lehman Brothers economist
Joseph Abate. Abate
noted that Kerry, who proposes to raise taxes on households earning
more than 200,000 dollars per year while expanding tax releief to others
and boosting health care credits, could increase the deficit. But
he said the Bush plan to make permanent the recent tax breaks enacted
by Congress would be an even bigger fiscal drain. According
to congressional estimates, he said the cost of the full Bush package
would exceed 2.2 trillion dollars over the next decade while Kerry's
plan would likely increase debt by 1.1 trillion dollars over the same
period. "Neither
candidate could reasonably be called a model of fiscal prudence," Abate
said. "Given
the size of these estimates, neither candidate, despite talk of fiscal
propriety, is likely to succeed in halving the budget deficit by
2009. Instead, over the next decade, these plans are likely to swell
the Federal debt by between 30 and 50 percent." Some
analysts see a future in which a debt-crippled Washington crowds
out the credit markets, leading to higher US interest rates and a
weaker dollar that roils the global economy. But that has not been
a campaign topic. "This
subject isn't going to be discussed honestly in an election. Bush
and Kerry want to talk about what they're going to give people," said
Peter Peterson, a former commerce secretary who heads the Concord Coalition,
a group advocating balanced budgets. "When
this country consumes more than it produces, government drains our
very limited national savings." Stephen
Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley said the United States has
gone from being the world's biggest creditor two decades ago to the
world's biggest debtor, and is squandering the money it is borrowing. "America
is no longer using surplus foreign saving to support 'good' growth," he
said. "Instead,
it is currently absorbing about 80 percent of the world's surplus
saving in order to finance open-ended government budget deficits
and the excess spending of American consumers." Sung
Won Sohn, chief exonomist at Wells Fargo Bank, said the United States
is likely to muddle through the deficits, but will pay through lower
living standards and higher interest rates. "We
borrow 1.8 billion dollars every single day from overseas in order
to offset the current-account deficit," Sohn said. "The
US will be able to raise enough money to fund the deficits. The issue
is the source of funding and the price. "The
US will rely increasingly on less stable sources of funding and pay
higher interest rates. It is a fait accompli that the dollar will
depreciate further. The dollar depreciation will lead to higher inflation
and interest rates, hurting the economy, including housing. "If
not corrected, our children might have to devote an increasing portion
of their work day to pay interest, dividends and rents to foreign
investors."

October 8

Image of the Day

Kendall Shaw, 3, from Palo Alto, Calif., plays on top
of the winning pumpkin in the 31st Annual World Championship Pumpkin
Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, Calif.. At left
are friends Honoka Kishino, 3, from Sunnyvale, Calif., and Tina Sato,
3, from Santa Clara, Calif. Joel Holland, from Puyallup, Wash., won
with his 1,229 Atlantic Giant pumpkin with a prize of $6,145.

October 9

Image of the Day

For the turtles : Animal rights activist mimick turtles
as crawl on the beach of Kuta, in Bali island during a protest calling
for the protection of the local ecosystem.

October 10

Image of the Day

October 11

Image of the Day

October 12

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Robot Use to Surge Sevenfold by 2007GENEVA - The use
of robots around the home to mow lawns, vacuum floors and manage
other chores is set to surge sevenfold by 2007 as more consumers
snap up smart machines, the United Nations said. That boom coincides
with record orders for industrial robots, said the U.N.'s annual
World Robotics Survey. The report, issued by the U.N. Economic Commission
for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics, said that
607,000 automated domestic helpers were in use at the end of 2003,
two-thirds of them purchased that year. Most of them — 570,000 — were
robot lawnmowers. Sales of vacuum cleaning robots reached 37,000. By
the end of 2007, some 4.1 million domestic robots will likely be
in use, the study said. Lawnmowers will still make up the majority,
but sales of window-washing and pool-cleaning robots are also set to
take off, it predicted. Sales
of robot toys, like Sony's canine AIBO (news - web sites), also have
risen. The study said there are now about 692,000 "entertainment
robots" around the world. Colin
Angle, Chief Executive of iRobot Corp. of Burlington, Massachusetts,
said many consumers had been introduced to the idea of household robots
40 years ago with Rosie, the mechanical housekeeper for the futuristic
cartoon family The Jetsons. But until now robots have failed to live
up to their promise. "Our
biggest hurdle right now is skepticism," Angle said.
But "we are just at a point where robots are becoming affordable
... and some of them can actually do real work." UNECE
said household robots could soon edge their industrial counterparts,
which have dominated the figures since the U.N. body first began counting
in 1990. Industrial
robots have nonetheless continued to recover from the slump recorded
in the 2001 study. "Falling
or stable robot prices, increasing labor costs and continuously improving
technology are major driving forces which speak for continued massive
robot investment in industry," said Jan Karlsson, author
of the 414-page study.
In
the first half of 2004, business orders for robots were up 18 percent
on the same period a year earlier, mostly in Asia and North America.
Japan still remains the most robotized economy, home to around half the current
800,000 industrial robots. After several years in the doldrums, demand
there jumped 25 percent in 2003. But
Europe and North America are fast catching up, the study said. European
Union (news - web sites) countries were in second place, with 250,000
robots in operation by the end of last year, mostly in Germany, Italy
and France. Demand from North American businesses rose 28 percent, with
some 112,000 robots in service by the end of last year. The
machines are also taking off in richer developing countries, including
Brazil, China and Mexico, spurred by plummeting prices.
Taking the
global average, a robot sold in 2003 cost a quarter of what a robot with
the same performance cost in 1990, the study found. It said that by 2007,
world industrial robot numbers will likely reach at least 1 million.
The term "robot" covers
any machine that operates automatically to perform tasks in a human-like
way, often replacing the human workers who did the job previously.
In most cases, robots move under their own propulsion and do not
need to be controlled by a human operator after they have been programmed. Most
industrial robots are used on assembly lines, chiefly in the auto
industry. But increasingly, companies are using them for other tasks,
the study said. There
are now some 21,000 "service robots" in
use, carrying out tasks such as milking cows, handling toxic waste
and even assisting in operating theaters. The number is set to reach
a total of 75,000 by 2007, the study said. By
the end of the decade, the study said, robots will "not
only clean our floors, mow our lawns and guard our homes but also
assist old and handicapped people with sophisticated interactive
equipment, carry out surgery, inspect pipes and sites that are hazardous
to people, fight fire and bombs."

October 13

Image of the Day

A devotee to the Chinese Shrine
of Jui Tui in Phuket, Thailand, has his face pierced with a host
of kitchen knives as he and others prepare to take part in the annual
Vegetarian Festival 2004. Ritual Vegetarianism
in Phuket traces it roots back to the early 1800's. The festival
begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for
nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing
as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves.

October 14

Image of the Day

Located between the Crown
and the Crescent of The Palm Jebel Ali, the Water Homes are a series
of elevated retreat homes linked together by boardwalks to form a
12km chain. Positioned strategically, they form a verse of Arabic
poetry composed by H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, which
when read from above reads: "Take wisdom from
the wise - not everyone who rides a horse is a jockey". The 1060
Water Homes boast luxurious amenities inside and feature private moorings
for personal boats.

For the world’s elite craving the ultimate in poetic retreat,
Atlantis Marketing is offering these Water Homes which can double as
holiday hideaways and private getaways. Paparazzi, after all, can’t
chase yachts.

October 15

Image of the Day

A pedestrian walks past a giant billboard at the major Sydney intersection
bearing Chinese- Australian woman Helen Zou's ad seeking a husband

October 16

Image of the Day

Shaolin Qigong : Shaolin monk
Shi Niliang demonstrates the art of "Qigong" as
he meditates while hanging by the neck for nearly a minute at his martial
art school in Quanzhou, southeast China's Fujian province.

October 17

Image of the Day

A sign is displayed at a movie
theater about the Afghan elections next to a Afghan restaurant in
the Little Kabul area of Fremont, Calif. Residents
of Little Kabul, the nation's largest concentration of Afghan emigres,
are watching closely as their homeland prepares to hold its first
direct presidential election. As millions of voters in Afghanistan
get ready to cast ballots Saturday, some residents
of Fremont's Little Kabul see the landmark vote as a crucial step
for a budding democracy.

October 18

Image of the Day

Microsoft, Swatch Offer New Wireless Watches

NEW
YORK - Microsoft Corp. and watch maker Swatch are offering a new line
of wireless data watches, the companies said, bringing the era of Dick
Tracy wristwatch radios one step closer.
The watches offer news, sports, weather and stock quotes, among other
snippets of content, via Microsoft's MSN Direct wireless data service.
Twice the number of information channels of earlier Microsoft-based
models are available. Known as the "Paparazzi" line, the
computerized Swatches also offer local entertainment updates through
a deal with publisher Time Out, as well as a chance to meet celebrities. The
watches come with three levels of service. Each comes free with
local weather, news headlines and stock index levels. For $40
a year, users can receive more weather data, personalized news and
sports scores, stock quotes, horoscopes and the like. For $60
annually, they can receive instant messages and calendar reminders
from their PC if they use Microsoft Outlook software. Microsoft and
Swatch began work on watches three years ago. "This is a new
way of getting information," Bill
Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, told
a news conference.
"It's
glanceable information and it's a combination of the two things that
I think people really care about -- fashion, something that's fun
and exiting, and technology that brings them personal information," he
said. Paparazzis
retail for $150, or two to three times the cost of conventional watches
sold by the Swiss watch maker. With
the addition of Swatch, there will now be 12 Microsoft "wrist-top" watch
models on sale for the holiday season. The first such watches were
introduced at the start of this year. Other
manufacturers include the youth-oriented watch maker Fossil,
Finnish sports gear maker Suunto and luxury brand Tissot,
another Swatch Group brand. The
existing watches range in price from $129 for a Fossil to $725 for
a Tissot. All of the watches are bulky and masculine, a function of
the need to embed a wireless antenna in the watch body or wristband.
The watches utilize unused local FM radio channels to broadcast general
content as well as personalized scheduling information to watches.
Messages can also be delivered to the watches using Microsoft Messenger
instant-messaging software. True
two-way phone features like those used by Tracy, the iconic U.S.
cartoon detective, would require stronger batteries and smaller chips
than are now economical. Newer
models of the Microsoft watches are thinner and more stylish than the
first versions of the computerized watches introduced a year ago. Microsoft
has also overcome congestion problems that hampered wireless data delivery
in the first few months of operation, a spokesman said.

What happens when my watch crashes
now from a windows error?

October 19

Image of the Day

More than two dozen top fund-raisers
for President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry are current
or former senior managers of companies punished for trading with
Iran or Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

October 20

Image of the Day

Patterson Elementary School nurse Beth Cloud, right, and teacher's
aide Sue Price, left, examines Ashlyn Blocker's feet for scrapes, after
recess. If she's scratched or cut, Ashlyn never complains because of
her rare disease. The 5-year-old is among a small number of people in
the world known to have congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis,
or CIPA - a rare genetic disorder that makes her unable to feel pain.

October 21

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Fuel prices at a Citgo Gas Station
stand out next to the Sears Tower in downtown Chicago October 5,
2004. Oil prices may cost as much as 10 percent less next year if
Democratic challenger John Kerry defeats President George W. Bush
in the election, some energy analysts said. Kerry is seen as more
likely to use the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to cool
prices and is expected to have a less aggressive policy in the Middle
East, lowering the risk of supply disruptions from the energy-rich
region.

October 22

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Italian woman banned from army for being too fatROME
- A young woman volunteer has been banned from the Italian army for
being too fat, media reported. The 1.65-metre (5.4-foot) tall 21-year-old,
identified only by her first name, Francesca, was considered unsuitable
for the army as her 78.5 kilos (173 pounds) was "incompatible
with the parametres of physical aptitude of military service",
it said. She had argued before an administrative tribunal in the central
coastal city of Ancona that she had passed her first army medical,
but then put on weight during her first 10 months of training due
to the stodgy food served. But her argument did not hold weight with
the court, which said that she had failed to lose her surplus kilos
during a convalescence period given her by the military go to on
a diet. However,
her lawyer said on Tuesday she was not going to take the matter lightly,
and that she would appeal the ruling. He said that for Francesca,
who hails from Catania in Sicily, "the
army was her choice of lifestyle and a work opportunity. "I don't
think that all the military you come across in Italy have perfect figures," he
said. The woman joined the Ascoli Piceno regiment near Anconi in 2001.

October 23

Image of the Day

Pumpkin pet : A dog in Halloween costume
joins the Halloween parade with his owner at the Omotesando district
in Tokyo.

October 24

Image of the Day

Chance, a 2-year-old English Sheepdog,
wears a Superman costume during a costume contest at Piccadilly Pets,
in Palo Alto, Calif. Chance and owner Clive Davies won first place.

October 25

Image of the Day

Along with a Wisconsin 'cheesehead' cowboy hat, a young woman wears
a shirt showing her support for the Republican Party during a rally for
President George W. Bush in Milwaukee. Bush and Democratic nominee John
Kerry are making a final push through a handful of
crucial swing states today in a last-ditch hunt for the votes that could
break open a deadlocked White House race.

October 26

Image of the Day

Bush Campaign to Recut Doctored AdINDIANOLA, Iowa - President Bush's
campaign acknowledged Thursday that it had doctored a photograph used
in a television commercial to remove the president and the podium where
he was standing. The campaign said the ad will be re-edited and reshipped
to TV stations.
A group of soldiers in the crowd was electronically copied
to fill in the space where the president and the podium had been, aides
say. "There was no need to do that," said Mark McKinnon, head
of Bush's advertising team who shouldered the blame. "Everyone
technically works for me so I accept the responsibility."
The
original photograph shows a sea of soldiers sitting behind the president
as he stands at a podium just left of the center of the frame. Bush
was speaking at Fort Drum in New York on July 19, 2002. Democrats said
it is fitting that Bush would fabricate an advertising image.
"This administration has always had a problem telling the truth
from Iraq to jobs to health care," said Kerry
spokesman Joe Lockhart. "The Bush campaign's advertising has been
consistently dishonest in what they say. But today, it's been exposed
for being dishonest about what we see. If they won't tell the truth
in an ad, they won't tell the truth about anything else."
McKinnon said a video editor he declined to identify was told to edit
the picture to focus on a young boy waving a flag. On his own initiative,
the editor removed the podium and copied the faces, McKinnon said."I
didn't even know it was done," he said. The doctoring
was first revealed on an Internet site. "There was no intention
on anybody's part to try to represent anything that wasn't true," McKinnon
said
The Bush campaign noted that Bush was addressing a large group of
troops in both the original and edited version. "Bush is talking
to the troops, the troops are real," said
Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt said. He noted that the crowd the president
was speaking to was much larger than depicted in the ad. The ad, released
Wednesday, is an emotional appeal in which Bush defends his decision
to go to war and empathizes with fallen soldiers and their families.
The ad is running on national cable networks and in local media markets
in at least one state, Ohio.

October 27

Image of the Day

Japanese cartoon figure Hello Kitty toasts with guests, including former
Hong Kong actress Gigi Fu, after cutting a birthday cake in Hong
Kong. The twinkling-eyed cartoonish character, which
was invented and promoted by a Japanese company called Sanrio in 1974
and has become one of the most popular Japanese cartoon figures around
the world, celebrated its 30th birthday.

October 28

Image of the Day

A polar bear at the San Diego
Zoo gets into the Halloween spirit as he plays with a pumpkin,
at the Zoo's Polar Bear Plunge. Kalluk, a 735-pound sub-adult male
bear pounced on, tackled and hugged the large plastic jack-o-lantern
which provided him hours of amusement.

October 29

Image of the Day

Tourists and residents make their
way through a flooded St. Mark's Square in Venice, northern Italy.
An exceptional 137-centimeter (54 inch) high tide flooded eighty
per cent of the town disrupting public transportation and flooding
shops.

October 30

Image of the Day

We had Noah's first
birthday party today with the extended family. At least 50
people showed up to enjoy bbq and relax over the afternoon and celebrate
Noah turning one years old.
A handout image released on October 31, 2004 shows three torpid dormice,
in the winning photograph of the BBC TV Countryfile photographic competition.
The image was taken by Steven Robinson at Wakehurst Place in southern
England as part of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew's monitoring program
of this endangered species in conjunction with English Nature

October 31

Image of the Day

Oil traders bet on a Kerry win, as U.S. crude prices fell below $50
on speculation a Kerry victory on Tuesday would ease the global tensions
that fueled this year's record-breaking rise. Both campaigns expressed
optimism and counted on vast get-out-the-vote operations to make the
difference on Election Day, when more than 100 million Americans will
choose a leader for the next four years.